Life in the laboratory was oppressive and agonizing. Chu Jifan tried to resign several times, but having learned the laboratory’s secrets, how could Mr. Qiao and the others let her leave?
Chu Jifan went from shock and anger to numbness. She no longer reacted, seemingly convinced, and delved deeply into her specialty.
The laboratory exploited her, but unbeknownst to them, she exploited the laboratory too. In secret, she began researching ways to reverse the Pollution.
Pollution was irreversible.
Chu Jifan despairingly realized this. Once human genes were polluted, they could only coexist; reversal was impossible. External forces could only delay progression.
On the day she achieved results, her private research was discovered.
The higher-ups flew into a rage. They did not punish her—her role in the laboratory was irreplaceable. As punishment, they brought in her foster mother’s daughter as a researcher assistant.
The moment she heard the news, Chu Jifan hated them to the extreme.
She exhausted every method but could not send her younger sister away. The higher-ups had seized her weakness and warned that if she made any more private moves, her sister would no longer be an assistant.
Without that role, she would have only one use.
To become a culture dish for Experimental Subject B-023.
For her sister’s sake, Chu Jifan dared no further actions.
With her cooperation, research progressed smoothly.
Under massive human experimentation, the laboratory higher-ups discovered a type of person that yielded the best B-023 cultivation results. After achieving phase two success, Mr. Qiao left the laboratory with a box of results.
Half a year later, Mr. Qiao returned with an even more perfected evolved experimental subject.
After that day, the experiment progressed rapidly. To ensure the final results, Mr. Qiao applied to his superiors and had a special item transferred in.
A cross made from the bones of the giant bird that had been covered in wings back then.
That cross was not as large as the one Lin Juan and the others saw later. It stood only as tall as a person and emitted a shimmering glow when removed from its special container.
They selected a “lucky one” to serve as the final culture medium for the Angel’s Eye.
When Chu Jifan unexpectedly learned that the chosen “lucky one” was her own sister, she could no longer hold back. She rushed to the higher-ups’ office and caused a huge scene.
The experiment had reached its final stage. For the higher-ups, Chu Jifan’s value was no longer as high as it had been before. They had tolerated this disobedient troublemaker for a long time.
Chu Jifan could not rescue her sister.
The higher-ups’ ruthlessness shattered Chu Jifan’s final illusions. Fortunately, thanks to her expertise in that field, she had built up some connections in the lab over the years.
Though most of those connections were lowly polluted individuals.
It was these unremarkable people who, heedless of their lives, sparked a riot—all to create a chance for Chu Jifan to get her sister out.
They failed.
They failed miserably.
Blood flowed everywhere, and corpses littered the ground. Everyone close to Chu Jifan among the experimental subjects died in that uprising, and her sister, unable to withstand the shock, fell to pollution from B-023 and perished.
The lab’s higher-ups celebrated. The eyeballs that had clawed their way out from the experimental subjects became prime material for the next round of tests. Chu Jifan locked herself in her room to make her final preparations.
She knew she could not take revenge on her own.
Everyone she cared about was dead. If she could use her life to avenge them, she was willing.
Deeply involved in the project, she knew many secrets. For instance, she knew that in the final moments of a failed experiment turning someone into a pollutant, a powerful obsession would drive the pollutant to act on instinct.
She had only one shot.
She knew the kind of culture medium they needed. Years of immersion in the experiments had taught her exactly how to fake the data they wanted.
With a blank expression, Chu Jifan injected tube after tube of reagents into her body. She endured the discomfort and wave after wave of rejection reactions.
It hurt terribly.
The pain kept her clear-headed and etched the blood feud into her memory.
Sure enough, when her metrics perfectly matched the requirements for incubating a B-023 culture medium, the higher-ups injected fresh B-023 seeds into her body without a second thought.
To guarantee success, they bound Chu Jifan to the Bird Bone Cross.
The instant she was bound, bone spikes extended from the cross and plunged deep into her body. They drained her blood and injected invisible pollution.
It was a long stretch of agony, suffering, and hopeless despair.
The excruciating pain bored into her bones. Chu Jifan passed out from it again and again, only to wake in fresh torment.
She was confined to a cell at the lab’s deepest level—no sunlight, no conversation.
She lost everything human about herself.
She lost track of time. All emotions faded away. She forgot she had ever been Chu Jifan. All she remembered was to destroy this place.
Destroy it!
Destroy everything!
B-023 began to hatch, but the data was far from ideal. The lab’s higher-ups finally realized they had been fooled.
Too late.
Chu Jifan was fully polluted.
Driven by her fierce obsession, she fused with the Bird Bone Cross and birthed the B-Rank Anomaly [Handmaid].
The [Handmaid]’s final form matched exactly what Lin Juan had seen just before leaving the illusion.
A massive, radiant cross gleaming with holy light. Atop it stood a woman in white robes, like an angel from paradise—too brilliant to behold directly.
The scenes that followed dissolved into chaos.
The lab paid a grievous price to destroy the [Handmaid]. The entire facility crumbled into ruins, buried forever with all its experimental subjects and researchers.
The blinding light faded. The lab ruins crumbled to dust like weathered stone and scattered on the wind.
Looking closely, this was no lab ruin at all. It was a dilapidated structure hidden inside the mountain.
Everyone’s mood grew complicated.
They had imagined all sorts of reasons for the lab’s destruction, but never something this tragic.
Silence fell.
Finally, Lin Juan broke it. “If this place was destroyed long ago, what was up with the illusion we walked into?”
The ability users shook off their tangled emotions.
He was right. If the [Handmaid] was dead and the lab utterly obliterated, why had they stumbled blindly into the illusion on their first investigation?
Something was still here.
The ability users were no fools. Lin Juan’s reminder jolted them alert.
Indeed, this was no time to relax. Chu Jifan had died and become a B-Rank Anomaly, but with all those experimental subjects in the lab, there was no way they put up zero fight.
“You’re very smart.”
The sudden female voice spiked their vigilance to the max.
They turned toward it. A woman in a white dress drifted down from midair.
Shockingly, she had Chu Jifan’s face!
The ability users tensed, ready to strike at any moment. Lin Juan looked up at the woman as she approached step by step and halted at a safe distance. He tested the waters. “Chu Jifan?”
“It’s me.” The woman inclined her head.
“[Handmaid]?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“You found a way to reverse pollution?” From the visions, Lin Juan had seen Chu Jifan tirelessly researching a reversal method, to no avail.
The ability users all turned expectant eyes her way.
Reverse pollution.
Those four words weighed a ton.
No one understood their gravity better than they did.
A real reversal method would mean no more fear of allies overusing powers and turning into anomalies. No more grief over ordinary folk becoming them.
Under a dozen hopeful stares, Chu Jifan spoke slowly, crushing their dreams. “Pollution can’t be reversed.”
“The more I studied, the surer I became.”
“Then what about you now…” Lin Juan sensed the pollution on her—faint, nowhere near B-Rank Anomaly levels.
“I am an anomaly. Not the B-Rank Anomaly [Handmaid], but the B-Rank Anomaly [Memory Cocoon]. And I’m not just Chu Jifan.” Her voice shifted mid-sentence to a man’s. “I’m a composite of countless experimental subjects’ obsessions.”
The lab brass never realized that a pollutant’s death didn’t make its pollution vanish right away. Left untreated, the residue would spawn a new anomaly.
After the [Handmaid] perished, its vast lingering pollution mutated the buried corpses in the mountain depths, birthing a fresh anomaly.
Born of obsession, they had no physical form—just a tangle of mingled fixations. They lay dormant until Lin Juan entered the illusion and roused the sealed memories.
Chu Jifan’s obsession dominated them. Having died as an anomaly herself, the [Memory Cocoon] reformed in this world with her as its core.
Lin Juan pieced it together. “So everything we saw before was your memory?”
“An illusion derived from my memories.” Chu Jifan blinked, her voice returning to normal. “Little Lin, our time working together was a cherished memory.”
“If only a ‘Little Lin’ and No. 1 had really shown up back then.”
So many tragedies might have been averted.
Chu Jifan seemed utterly human. Even knowing she was an anomaly, it was easy to forget in a blink.
What to do with her?
Director Liu could deal with that headache.
Lin Juan bound Chu Jifan and brought her to Director Liu. He gave a quick rundown. “Captain Sheng knows the full story. Ask him for details, Director Liu. I’m going to check on Lu Yanzhou.”
While Lin Juan was gone, Lu Yanzhou handled files that had piled up during his coma and fielded several calls from Old Master Lu.
Old Master Lu never imagined that while he stepped out for a meal, Lu Yanzhou would wake up—and bolt straight out of the hospital.
Good thing his heart was fine, or it might’ve given out.
Old Master Lu vented plenty over the phone. Lu Yanzhou knew he’d messed up and worried his father.
But in the moment, he hadn’t been able to think straight. All that mattered was confirming Lin Juan was safe.
The instant he laid eyes on Lin Juan, a rush of relief hit him like a tidal wave. He pulled him into a hug without a care.
Seeing Lin Juan return, Lu Yanzhou’s gaze locked onto him and stayed there.
He rose unconsciously and headed that way.
“Lu Yanzhou!” Spotting him, Lin Juan wrapped up with Director Liu in a rush and jogged over.
“All done?”
Lin Juan stopped in front of him. Lu Yanzhou couldn’t resist reaching out to smooth his hair.
“Yeah. Let’s head back.”
They ran into Old Master Lu waiting just outside.
Seeing the pair emerge unscathed, Old Master Lu scanned them head to toe with concern. “You two okay?”
He tugged Lin Juan closer for a thorough check.
Lin Juan had a small cut on his hand.
Old Master Lu seized it. “Your hand’s hurt. Get it treated soon.”
“It wasn’t there before.” Lu Yanzhou leaned in, distress plain on his face. “Does it hurt?”
The cut was minor—probably from a recent scrape. Lin Juan hadn’t even noticed. “I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t pointed it out. Feels like nothing.”
“Disinfect it anyway.”
The Anomalous Affairs Bureau’s med kit was fully stocked with all sorts of tools. Lu Yanzhou fetched disinfectant and cotton balls to clean Lin Juan’s wound.
The liquid stung on contact. Lin Juan twitched his finger.
“That bad?” Lu Yanzhou frowned, easing up.
“Nah.” Lin Juan eyed his hand. “I’m good.”
He couldn’t outstubborn Lu Yanzhou in the end. He let him finish disinfecting it properly.
“Uncle, why are you here?” Lin Juan still didn’t know about Lu Yanzhou’s coma.
“Who else but to chase after this worrywart son of mine.” Old Master Lu had ridden an emotional rollercoaster all day, his tone wry.
“Hm?” Oh yeah. Lin Juan turned. “Lu Yanzhou, how’d you end up here?”
It had only been about ten days in and out—not that long.
Old Master Lu eyed his son, whose brows had furrowed slightly, and teased. “Xiao Juan, don’t let his size fool you. He’s clingy as can be. Can’t make it a full day without you.”
Lin Juan recalled the tight hug Lu Yanzhou had given him right away. He glanced up. Who knew the big bad guy was such a clinger?
